Category Archives: Anaerobic Digestion

January 1 is a great day to be a Vancouver trash collector. Starting then, the regular trash will be blessedly free of food waste. A city-wide ban on disposing food in landfills goes into effect in 2015. While the practice will technically be outlawed, Metro Vancouver won’t begin fining anyone for six months, and even [...]

Last week, Massachusetts took a major step toward becoming a state where no food waste hits the landfill. As of October 1, any entity producing more than 1 ton of food waste per week isn’t allowed to simply throw it away. That applies to restaurants, universities, hospitals and a variety of other operations. If all [...]

Scary data point of the day: in India, 40 percent of the food by value does not reach consumers. And yes, this is a nation where 47 percent of children are underweight. — — If all eyes are on Boston, they will be so for a while! The (commercial) food waste landfill ban doesn’t kick in until [...]

We’re just beginning this new year, but talk of diverting food from landfills–be it by composting or anaerobic digestion–abounds. And that’s a very good thing. In Connecticut, January 1st meant the start of a new law requiring some businesses within 20 miles of a composting facility to recycle their food waste. While the specifics still feel [...]

The Cleveland Browns will unveil a food-waste-to-energy scheme at this Sunday’s game. The storied, snake-bitten NFL team has installed pulpers to grind food waste on site before hauling it to a nearby anaerobic digester. This exciting news is part of the USDA Dairy Power program pairing dairy biodigesters with commercial food scraps. According to USDA calculations, if all [...]

Mayor Bloomberg recently announced some further details on New York’s plan to expand its composting program from the current thousand-odd households to 100,000 by 2014. And it’s about time, given that a staggering 29% of New York City’s trash is compostable. Salon examines the potential revenue embedded in that waste stream. You know who thinks [...]

The news: In May, the Massachusetts DEP indicated that the state would ban landfilling or incineration of commercial food waste. Yesterday, more details emerged as the Patrick Administration announced the plan. Mind you, the proposed plan is just that. It’s in draft mode, and there will be public hearings seeking comments. There’s also a draft guidance memo [...]

When it comes to anaerobic digestion in the US, any news is good news. Even noncommittal, vague comments like those from a spokesperson for Ralphs Grocery Co. Ralphs is one of the Kroger-owned supermarket chains involved with the anaerobic digestion system at a Los Angeles distribution center that process 55,000 tons of food waste per [...]

At last–a peer-reviewed analysis of trayless dining! Two American University researchers found that removing trays at their all-you-can-eat cafeteria cut food waste by 32%. What’s more, diners use 27% fewer dishes, leading to water and energy savings. — — As we learn here, cutting food waste would go a long way toward making our food [...]

There’s some evidence that the issue of food waste is catching on in China, albeit in a fairly political way. According to the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League, the abundant food waste can be blamed on the wealthy. — — Waitrose, the British grocery chain, just announced that it now sends no food [...]